Following the passage of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill into law, Inner Circle Consultancy's Evie John writes the first in a series of guest blogs for us on where this vital policy agenda goes next.
Why devolution must change how government works, not just where power sits
The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill marks a rare moment to reset how government operates across place and scale. For all the focus on powers, funding and institutional design, the more fundamental question is how we govern.
Combined authorities and mayors introduce a new layer of governance with the potential to drive systemic change across their region, and with that comes a choice.
Long called for Fiscal devolution sharpens the potential of this shift to embed long-term transformation. Greater control over funding and revenue can align incentives with place, link growth to local resources, and support longer‑term, preventative approaches. But it also raises the stakes. Autonomy requires capability: strong partnerships, effective system leadership and clear accountability. Devolution must also result in the space to experiment, learn and adapt, rather than reproduce uniform national models shaped by legacy systems.
Handled poorly, devolution risks becoming a decentralised version of the status quo: transactional, siloed, and defined by institutional boundaries rather than the realities of place. Done this way, accountability may shift without outcomes improving. People did not vote for devolution or system redesign; legitimacy will be earned through what each region delivers, and how.
The alternative is more ambitious. Devolution can enable a different model of governing: relational, networked and rooted in place. This version creates the conditions for governance to evolve over time, learning from practice, adapting to change, and choosing what not to replicate from inherited models.
It is relational because it starts with people and communities, not programmes and funding streams. This is particularly important in places undergoing deep economic and social transition, where policy must speak a language that is human, and to identity as well as outcomes.
It is networked because leadership is exercised across systems, not institutions. Place‑based challenges cut across organisational boundaries, and responses must do the same. This demands investment in relationships that enable collective action, genuine co‑production, and space for innovation to emerge from practice rather than be imposed.
It is multi‑level because effective governance depends on decisions being made at the right spatial level. As technological and societal change accelerates, places need freedom to pilot and iterate, while remaining connected to regional and national systems that can support what works.
So, the question is not how much power is devolved, but how it is used. Devolution must be a platform for place leadership, felt in daily life, organised around shared outcomes, and focussed on impact. To succeed, government must back this shift with fiscal devolution, proportionate assurance, and the discipline to create conditions rather than dictate them.
Future legislation will matter not because it adds more policy, but because it determines whether devolution delivers lasting change. Too often, flexibility written into legislation is lost in interpretation and enforcement, allowing process to override purpose. If devolution is to succeed, legislation must explicitly enable regions to lead, learn and improve over time.
This requires a clear stance from government. A roadmap for fiscal devolution should be underpinned by strong assurance and accountability, but it should not dictate how places deliver. Legislation can and should do more by embedding a duty to convene and a duty to collaborate. These recognise mayors and combined authorities as system leaders — responsible for bringing public services, business, civil society and communities together around shared outcomes — and make collaboration across institutional and sectoral boundaries the norm rather than the exception. Together, these duties hard‑wire system leadership into the operating logic of devolution.
That approach demands discipline. Innovation involves risk, and not every intervention will succeed. The test is not the absence of failure, but whether there is a confident system for learning from it — sharing insight across places and improving practice over time. Without this discipline, devolution risks becoming another exercise in compliance. With it, legislation becomes an enabler of long‑term, place‑based change.
Evie John Inner Circle Consulting
A roadmap for fiscal devolution should be underpinned by strong assurance and accountability, but it should not dictate how places deliver.
Evie John, Inner Circle Consulting